Friday, 1 January 2010

I suspect a “Happy New Year” is in order, it being January 1st. But this whole lack of a flying car thing really is bugging me – I wonder if my future is faulty?

I’ve been making the most of the non-raiding holiday lull, and aside from doing the Tournament dailies on Ringle (to get enough champions marks to buy the other two hippogryph mounts – about 185 to go)… And doing the random daily dungeon for frost emblems on Ringle and Mingle… And more random dungeons to get Pringle geared up… Oh, and playing the AH to get enough Primordial Saronite to purchase the pattern for the Sandals of Consecration and and make a pair for Mingle (which I did yesterday – yay!).. And OldDingle has a shiny new Ravasaur. (Grats Mr. Troll)

Um… Ok, so I haven’t been quite as idle as I thought. But aside from those, I’ve been kicking back a little and trying to enjoy what looks to be a pleasant summer down here in my little corner of the antipodes.

Now that Pringle is getting fairly well-geared (after gearing Ringle up to Icecrown level), I’m tempted to either bring prot warrior Dingle out of semi-retirement, or perhaps try either tanking or healing on nubpally Bingle (although a lot of research would be needed before I’d try any dungeons on Bingle – and her healing gear is pretty awful). I could also try my hand at huntering on Kringle, but I’m kind of ambivalent about using him for anything more than farming old reagents and doing daily gem transmutes.

Another possible goal (admittedly a long-term one, and purely cosmetic) would be to get Mingle her tier 5 set as around-town gear – while Mingle now has her first piece of T10 (the shoulders), I’m rather… underwhelmed with their appearance, especially the colour of the entry-level set (seriously, green?). I managed to finagle my way into a Lady Vashj kill last week, but had to pass on the helm token that dropped in favour of a lower-level character who was going to use it for leveling – it was a little disappointing, but at least it was going to be put to good use.

As an aside, I’m finding that while the LFD tool has been great for farming badges, it’s actually proving quite isolating. I mean, it’s rare to have people saying more than “Hi” and “Thanks, bye” and the start and end of a run (something I’m prone to, to be honest, but then I’m usually not the most loquacious individual). But on the plus side, it’s just so incredibly convenient…

I wonder what the long-term effect of this change will be? Will 5-mans become a lottery you do with strangers for badges for non-raiding characters and gearing up new alts, and raid content become the majority of content you do with people you know? It’ll actually be interesting to see how Cataclysm goes, with the new 5-mans you’ll be able to access as you’re leveling.

For now, though, it’s time to make another coffee and get those dailies done on Ringle – hippogryphs don’t purchase themselves, after all. Oh, and WoWModelViewer has been updated again (hence the image of a well-dressed Mingle above, now that the program is working with the new 3.3 data) – it might just be time to update my banner.

The Responsible Party

KiwiRed

I'm KiwiRed, long-time gamer, relatively recent blogger. I've been into computer games since the ZX-81, and now dabble in MMOs, RPGS, and various other PC game genres. This is my little corner of the internet where I can stand on my little soapbox and complain that everything was so much better when I was a kid.